


You Should See Me in a Crown

by AniseNalci



Series: 7KPP Quarantine Prompts [1]
Category: Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem (Visual Novel)
Genre: Age Difference, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Family Issues, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:21:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23715856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AniseNalci/pseuds/AniseNalci
Summary: Pre-Summit. Once upon a time, the Revaire Widow was a just another girl.Written in response for 7KPP Prompts (Day 1: Night).
Relationships: Revaire Widow (Seven Kingdoms)/Undisclosed
Series: 7KPP Quarantine Prompts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1708210
Kudos: 1





	You Should See Me in a Crown

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently there is a 7kpp fandom. My bad, I'm late.  
> Also there is a 7kpp prompt thing going on over at tumblr so I reactivated my old account and I'm following along.
> 
> Unbeta'd so feel free to point out mistakes.  
> Title is from 'you should see me in a crown' by Billie Eilish. Capitalised though, because grammar, although aesthetically lowercase would be nicer. Also, because this is the Revaire Widow's song. Fight me.
> 
> For what it's worth, here is the character guide:  
> \- Desdemona: the future Revaire Widow  
> \- Desdemona's parents: fools that they are, I haven't given them a name in this story (though I have ideas on what their names should be)  
> \- Crowley: the estate manager who manages Desdemona's family estate  
> \- Desdemona's neighbours: an elderly couple

She said nothing when her father told her that she was to be married.

She could have said much. She was not yet sixteen, still not quite yet out of the schoolroom. She was too young to be the wife of an elderly man old enough to be her grandfather. Had she possessed the riches that her family should have been in possession of, she could have attended finishing school, and become a star in the Revairean court. She possessed beauty, she possessed wit, she possessed grace. This she knew, as certain of her qualities as she was of the air she breathed. She could have, should have…

But the caprices of a foolish father and capricious mother had put an end to such thoughts.

* * *

They had broken the news to her at night, after dinner, after she helped put her siblings to bed. Her parents had seven children, of whom she was the eldest. “Desdemona,” her mother trilled in her musical soprano. “Please come and join us afterwards before you sleep. We would like to talk to you about something important.”

Desdemona. They had named her Desdemona. It was a flight of fancy on her mother’s part. “It all sounded very beautiful, if a bit tragic,” her whimsical mother had told her. “Can’t remember where I heard it from,” she sighed, “but it was pretty, and you were pretty, and I thought it suited beautifully.”

Desdemona knew, of course, of a tragic figure who had borne her name. A beautiful woman, whose life ended in tragedy, due to the machinations and cruelty of man. She hated her name. She would not end up like her namesake. She would not die, not in such an ignominious way.

Her parents thought it would make breaking the news easier, if they told her after the younger children were in bed. Perhaps easier for them; there wouldn’t be seven children all clamouring as a result of the news. Perhaps they expected with the younger children being in bed, Desdemona would not scream and cry and shout, or put up a fuss.

They need not have worried. Desdemona would never have done that. She would never have created a scene. It was unbecoming of a young lady to throw a tantrum, no matter how unwelcome the news.

* * *

In all honesty, Desdemona had suspected this for a while. That her parents would try to marry her off, that was.

“We will need to economise, darling,” her father told her mother indulgently, one day, when her mother asked for a bit more of pin money. It was a lovely summer’s day, and yet the children were cooped inside, for the most part. Desdemona and siblings who were old enough to participate in chores were dusting and sweeping with the servants, as her father pored over papers in the main sitting room, while her mother supervised the youngest children.

“Indeed? Why, my love, have we not been economising so well the last few months?” Her mother’s tone was mild-mannered, but there was a faint edge to it that Desdemona recognised.

(This was – Desdemona had learnt – code for “Selling off more of the family heirlooms.”)

“Ah, that is true, sweetheart,” her father spluttered. “Unfortunately, we did not reach our targets.”

(Meaning, “The sales were insufficient to cover our debts,” which could have been due to a variety of things. Her parents had no head for business, and part of the reason why debts kept accumulating, she suspected.)

“I find that difficult to imagine, but what does Crowley think?”

Crowley? Desdemona shuddered. As far as she was concerned, since her parents hired Crowley to assist in estate management, things had gone from bad to worse. He was an oily, two-faced sort of person, a Janus in personality and she was sure he was embezzling from her parents. She had pored the accounts one day, when her father had haphazardly left them out, and had been horrified at the many discrepancies. It wasn’t too difficult to spot them, and a child (such as herself) could most definitely pick up where the accounts did not match up. It was frustrating when her father dismissed her concerns, and ignored her attempts to enlighten him. “Do not worry, darling, Crowley will take care of it all!”

Crowley! That snake! She hated him. He was a pale, tall, thin figure, who had been hired as her father could not keep his old steward anymore. He had a poor upbringing, but his pay was cheap in comparison, and of course, they had to economise.

(Of course, one gets what they paid for, and her poor, hapless parents paid a pittance for a common thief.)

Her parents were still conversing. “Crowley thinks we shall need to economise much more,” her father said, sombre. “He thinks we need an influx of money.”

“But where from?”

Here her father hesitated. “Well, he has a bit of savings, but he is hesitant to invest with us, because of course, we are of no relation to him. If only we had a rich relative…”

_Oh no!_

* * *

Desdemona was no fool.

Crowley had come from humble origins, and who sought to climb his way up the social ladder. He was ambitious, she would give him that, but he was unethical, unprincipled, and a horrible human being. He took advantage of people’s trust and robbed them blind. He had done it with her parents, after all. She was sure that once her parents had been bled dry, he would move on to the next victim. Perhaps one day his misdeeds would catch up with him, but she suspected her family would be in the hedgerows before that.

More worryingly, he seemed to find her and her sisters attractive.

Desdemona knew she was beautiful. It was her family’s one saving grace in the new Revairean court. Their line went back as far as Old Revaire nobility, but was too insignificant or poor to be of any importance, so with the change in the regime, they were forgotten, rather than stripped of their estate. Admittedly, it was a large estate next to several incredibly profitable ones, but during this time, its maintenance cost more than its income. Her father – for a short time, in his youth – had been popular, but could not maintain his dandy lifestyle with the debts he fell into. Her mother – herself a toast of all of Revaire during her Season – married her father, and was thus brought down. Friends were only generous to a point, after all.

Her parents knew she was beautiful too. After all, full of faults they may have been, but they were not _complete_ fools.

Desdemona knew she had to act, before her parents decided that perhaps Crowley might be worth inviting into the family home permanently.

* * *

She had always found Crowley repulsive, after all.

Imagine a night. Imagine a party. Imagine a younger Desdemona, dressed for such a party. She was in her best dress, a hand-me-down from her mother, but the very first ‘grown-up’ dress she had ever had. It was the Harvest Ball, and she would turn fifteen in the coming winter. The dress was ill-fitted, more suited to her mother’s larger frame than her small, delicate one, but it was a beautiful cornflower blue silk, and Desdemona did feel beautiful in it. The colour matched her eyes, and her red hair had been brushed until it glimmered like fire among the embers.

She was beautiful, and she knew it.

At that moment, she imagined what she could have been. By all rights, under proper management, the estate could be incredibly profitable. She could have afforded finishing school, instead of the school village. She could have made friends in high places. She could have been, like her mother before her, a debutante of high acclaim, with a wardrobe the envy of her peers, fitting her perfectly.

She _should_ have been.

Instead, she had to be content as a simple country miss ogled by a lecherous man who was sucking her family dry. Everywhere she turned, she could feel Crowley’s insistent gaze on her. She was afraid of the shadows, afraid she would find him lurking there. She pleaded to retire early, claiming a headache.

Her parents had been disappointed.

“Ach, let the poor child head go up to bed, afore she faints. See how pale she is, fae-like creature that she is!” Boomed an elderly neighbour, one of the few who still reciprocated visits with her family.

She smiled gratefully at him when her parents acquiesced. His wife smiled at her. 

She was safe from Crowley that night.

* * *

There were many more nights in between the night of the Harvest Ball and the night her parents told her she was to be married. Thankfully, she had been spared the worst of Crowley’s attentions.

In between these, she visited the elderly neighbour couple once or twice. The husband was a genial man, his wife a lovely, benign old lady. Both were frail, their health slipping slowly away. The wife appreciated the visits, Desdemona thought. There was not much society in the country, and they themselves had been considered new money back when they were young, and so were in that unfortunate social class where they were either considered too rich or too untitled to fit.

(Desdemona thought she would rather be too rich but untitled, than titled but as poor as a churchmouse.)

One night, Desdemona visited the old lady, and they spoke of a summit that could change lives forever.

“Every seven years, it comes. The Peace Summit of the Seven Kingdoms. When I was a girl, I wished to be chosen, to make my own destiny. But my destiny lay here.” She smiled at Desdemona. “We can dream, can we not? Of Princes and Dukes and Lords to rescue us.”

“We are responsible for our own rescue,” Desdemona had said, loftily.

“With that attitude, my dear child, you should have been a queen. Mayhaps you still shall, although I am not sure how you can achieve it. I wonder if I will be alive to see it.”

(She would not. She died late autumn of that year, before Desdemona turned fifteen.)

Desdemona said nothing in response to that at the time. It transpired that she had stayed far later than she should have, and she hurried home soon after. That night, however, she thought to herself, _I should have been a queen._

_I shall be a queen._

_I shall…_

* * *

What she would not be was Crowley’s wife.

The word ‘economising’, peppered so liberally in her parents’ conversations, began to frustrate her. Her mother kept asking what Crowley would do for them; nothing aside from warning them, it seemed, according to her father. After all, Crowley was not family.

If only the old lady had lived, she would have been surprised that the Desdemona who ‘should have been a queen’ was now crying at night at the prospect of being married to a man such as Crowley.

Except…

* * *

When the letter came for her parents, Desdemona sighed in relief. She pocketed it and delivered it directly to her father. It would not do for Crowley to intercept it.

* * *

The night her parents told her that she was to be married:

“Darling, we have news for you.”

Desdemona braced herself. Her parents sat side-by-side; a more beautiful but perfectly foolish couple there never was, she thought.

“Our neighbour, the widower, whose wife you occasionally visited?” Here her father went off in a description of the man’s names, titles, wealth, family; everything, really. Desdemona wished they would get to the point.

“He thinks you would make a fine wife.”

Desdemona’s face froze in place.

“Obviously, this is a splendid match for you!” (No, it wasn’t.) “He is wealthy,” and again, her father described the man’s many properties and his wealth.

(Well, it was a splendid match for the family.)

“Of course, we think you should say yes.” (Of course. How much was he willing to provide for the family? Never mind.)

“I think a winter wedding would be lovely. Perhaps your sixteenth birthday?” Her mother ventured and she entwined her fingers with Desdemona’s father.

(Her neighbour had only come out of morning two weeks ago. For him, it would not seem as though he was rushing to be wed again, but she was so young, still…)

_I should have been a queen._

_“When I was a girl, I wished to be chosen, to make my own destiny. But my destiny lay here.”_

Desdemona nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

* * *

She could not sleep that night. In the morning, when her family asked her the reason for the bags under her eyes, she would blame that the moon and the night sky full of stars were shining so brightly, so beautifully, that she could not bring herself to slip under the covers of her bed. That night, instead of sleeping, she sat by the window in the room she shared with her sleeping sisters (the boys were in a different room, of course), hugging her thin pillow as she admired the night sky, though her own thoughts kept her preoccupied.

_By my sixteenth birthday, I shall be a wedded woman._

She contemplated the events that led to this. A letter, smuggled to her neighbour, begging for assistance for her family’s debts, so that she would not be forced to marry the odious Crowley. Never did she think she would be exchanging one marriage for another. How could her neighbour think she was willing to marry him? He was old enough to be her grandfather!

She would not cry. Her sisters would not see her weak. She was made of stronger stuff than this. At any rate, as a married woman, perhaps she would have more power over her family’s affairs. Perhaps as a married woman, her parents would allow her to manage the estate. Perhaps they would prefer it, after all, as indolent as they were.

_I should have been a queen!_

She stifled her scream into her pillow, burying her face in it and hugging it even closer to her chest. The autumn air was chilly, and her thin nightgown was no protection as she curled herself into a ball, trying in vain to warm herself. Outside, the harvest was done. The fields seemed barren to her as winter slowly approached the land. And even the light of the stars illuminating the night sky seemed to mock her eventual fate. It was inevitable, but Desdemona was full of resolve.

She would have to be, regardless of if she were a queen or not.

* * *

_**Fin** _

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when you try to take control of your life and it backfires on you.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy!  
> Comments, kudos, favourites are all love.


End file.
